Monday

monday 04/28

[FILM]

OUR GIRL

A double dose of ‘America’s Sweetheart’

Though she was raised in Canada, silent-film star Mary Pickford was known as “America’s Sweetheart,” winning over fans with her sweet, girlish looks and big, expressive eyes. As part of Film Forum’s tribute to the 90th anniversary of United Artists—a company that Pickford co-founded with Charlie Chaplin and others—you can see two of her “little girl with the curls” classics for the price of one: Sparrows (1926), in which Pickford saves a group of children from an alligator-infested labor camp (with live piano accompaniment by Steve Sterner), and My Best Girl (1927), a classic meet-cute in which Pickford, a shopgirl, falls for her handsome co-worker Buddy Rogers, who became her third real-life husband just nine years later. See Sparrows at 7:10, My Best Girl at 5:30 and 9, Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street, filmforum.org, $10.50 for two movies ANGELA ASHMAN

[BENEFIT]

G WHIZ

Genocide takes center stage

What’s in a name? Hollywood producer Doug Claybourne and playwright L.D. Napier asked themselves this question when President Bush named the situation in Darfur “genocide” in 2005. “I grew up learning about the Holocaust and wondering what I would have done had I been there. How could people have stood by?” asks Napier. “Then Rwanda happened. Bosnia happened. And I did nothing.” Now, he and Claybourne are doing something: They’ve organized Four Days for Darfur, a benefit for Darfur Peace and Development, the Genocide Intervention Network, and Oxfam, which includes last night’s fancy-schmancy gala and a three-day run of Napier’s new play, The G-Word: For Those Born Later, in which the author covers the history of the word “genocide,” interspersed with true stories from Darfur. At 8, through Wednesday, La MaMa, 74 East 4th Street, 212-475-7710, $30–$50 SHARYN JACKSON